Savant likes movies based on the multi-generational stories of Edna Ferber; most of them are at
least interesting and several are great pictures:
Giant, Cimarron,
Showboat. This 1936 Goldwyn production is the best opportunity to appreciate the actress
Frances Farmer. The movie is about ambition, success and the people that get left behind, and
it creates a potent aura of nostalgia.

Synopsis (spoilers):

1884. Tireless logger Barney Glasgow (Edward Arnold) not only has the best record
for clearing timber in Minnesota, he has a scheme to use railroad right-of-ways to increase the
lumber company's rape of the timberland tenfold. He talks his boss Mr. Hewitt (Charles Halton) into
a partnership worth millions, but it has one catch - Hewitt wants a husband for his plain daughter
Emma Louise (Mary Nash). Carousing with his friend Swan Bostrum (Walter Brennan), Barney meets the
love of his live at exactly the wrong time - a spirited saloon singer named Lotta Morgan (Frances
Farmer). After a brief flirtation he skips out to return to the Hewitts and his fortune.
Broken hearted, Lotta marries Swan, "The kindest man she knows."

1907. Barney is now 50 and one of the most powerful paper mill owners in America, making do with
his tepid marriage to Emma Louise. His daughter Evvie (Andrea Leeds) wants to marry a lowly paper
mill worker named Tony Schwerke (Frank Shields). Visiting the old town for the first time
in years, Barney meets Swan's daughter Lotta - the exact likeness of her dead mother. Barney's
ambitious son Richard (Joel McCrea) meets her too and is smitten as well. Barney entertains
ideas of "keeping" Lotta in Chicago, or perhaps leaving his wife to marry her ...

Come and Get It is only 99 minutes long and is even shorter after one subtracts a
lumber-cutting montage prologue. The story is organized beautifully into just a few powerful
scenes and never seems rushed. It has both economy and depth and keeps up a pace without sacrificing
content. That's doubly impressive considering that its direction was split between two of the top
names in Hollywood; William Wyler took over after Howard Hawks was fired by Sam Goldwyn. One has
to think that the movie was shot in script order. Earlier scenes are more comedic and
boisterous, full of long takes and overlapping dialogue we associate with Hawks. The later
dramatic passages involve a full family in a social situation, with more familiar romantic
conflicts. They look exactly like the work of William Wyler, especially when a major scene takes
place on a staircase!

The story grabs us right away. Edward Arnold's Barney Glasgow is an American success
clearly defined as a pirate demolishing the landscape to benefit his bankroll. This is Arnold before
he became an all-purpose bad guy in Frank Capra movies; he's more robust than portly and has more
energy than anyone else in the picture. Joel McCrea is again the unsung actor; I'm not sure he was
ever even considered for an Oscar. As a responsible son, he provides a quiet alternative to Barney's
selfishness. Barney had to make his way in wilder times and doesn't recognize that his son
Richard's lack of aggression isn't a bad thing. Any male will immediately identify with this
father-son relationship.

For both comedy relief and sentiment there's Walter Brennan's Swan Bostrum as the "yumpin' yimminy"
Nordic fool stereotype who turns out to be the nicest character in the story. If one thinks
of Brennan in terms of his Rio Bravo days, the actor might be hard to recognize - he's
as skinny as a rail. Brennan won an Oscar for this role.

But the irreplaceable component of Come and Get It is Frances Farmer. She positively glows.
Jessica Lange did a fine impersonation in the 80s biopic but the real Farmer is softer and
projects more vulnerability. Just the same, she's credible as a slow-n-easy saloon diva of the 1880s,
singing "Aura Lee" (the original tune for "Love Me Tender") in an impossibly low register.
She's much more than the one that got away ... in just a couple of scenes we see her form her
life's commitment only to watch helplessly as it crumbles before her eyes. It's heartbreaking. 1

Lotta is a vision in spit-curls, knowing she's the best-looking woman in the state but also aware
that she's fatally unlucky. Hawks (I'm assuming) gives her the honor of an extreme up-angle shot
singing, the kind of isolated emphasis that always sticks out in his wide shots of held scenes.

Twenty-three years later Farmer is playing her own daughter - younger and less experienced but no
fool even though she's been raised in a logging town. After the high spirits of the first section of
the film, here's where the ironies and regrets sink in. Barney at first thinks he's seen a ghost and
then allows his judgment to slip. He threw his heart away when he married for money and now he
thinks that he can get it back again, that he's still the unstoppable force he used to be. The
film quickly reveals his interest in young Lotta to be very wrong, practically incestuous. Even his
smirking secretary is too intimidated to tell him off, and Barney's only real
friend Swan isn't perceptive enough to see what plans he has for Lotta. When she gravitates toward
Barney's son Richard, there's going to be trouble.

Come and Get It has a deeply felt sense of nostalgia. In 1936 the 1880s were only as remote as
the 1950s are now (incredible) and the hardworking saloon crowds in the beginning with the singing
waiters and crooked gambling den are perfectly realized. The women don't appear out of place in their
corseted dresses; when young Lotta and her cousin Karie enter a 1907 train car we're just as
embarrassed as they are because we aren't immediately aware that they're wearing
fashions twenty years out of date.

The separate threads of Come and Get It converge perfectly at the end, with characters that
resolve in the only way they can. It's still a fine entertainment, 70 years later.

We get a good look at the ugly-mug John Ford regular Jack Pennick in the early scenes, and it's
said that Hank Worden is there as well. This picture seems like an unauthorized cultural backstory
for Savant, for my grandfather came to Minnesota from Sweden in 1907. But black audiences are more
likely to resent the presentation of Glasgow's black valet, named Snowflake. The actor who played
him is listed as Fred 'Snowflake' Toones.

MGM's DVD of Come and Get It is a single title in a crop of Goldwyn classics coming out the same
week. I have a copy of the much older DVD release and this transfer and encoding are far superior.
The picture is sharp and those closeups of Farmer are to die for; the audio brings out all the
sweetness in "Aura Lee" and the fun of the band concert at the big party that concludes the show.

The original trailer stresses action and gives the mistaken impression that the whole show is
about cutting down trees. There are no other extras.

1.The real-life
story of Frances Farmer is even more heartbreaking and her image here becomes all the more intense for it.
A quick web-search investigation is recommended for those not already familiar with her story.Return